GAME REPORT

Ekaterinburg Pummel Bourges

UMMC Ekaterinburg brushed aside a weakened Bourges Basket in the first EuroLeague Women game of the day in Russia.

One of the powerhouses in the competition, Algirdas Paulauskas' team rolled to a 68-50 victory.

The French giants had only eight players available on Wednesday, though.

Guard Kiesha Brown did not have the visa she needed to travel to Russia, while her fellow American Cathy Joens, as well as France international Emmeline Ndongue and Romane Bernies are still recovering from their injuries.

It was evident in the first quarter that Bourges were facing an uphill battle because they fell behind 9-2 following a pair of Anete Jekabsone free-throws, and were then down 19-6 after Olga Arteshina sank two more from the charity stripe.

Bourges managed to claw the deficit back to 19-13 by the end of the first quarter, with Endene Miyem capping a 7-0 run with two free-throws.

But France national team center Sandrine Gruda sparked a 10-2 UMMC run to put them back in command.

They had a 38-23 lead at half-time and stretched that to 55-32 with 10 minutes remaining.

UMMC coasted the rest of the way.

Gruda and Deanna Nolan each poured in 16 points for the hosts, with Cappie Pondexter adding 11.

Celine Dumerc, who spent the past two seasons at UMMC before returning to Bourges, had nine points but turned the ball over seven times.

Stella Kaltsidou led the visitors with 17 points.

COACH QUOTES

Quotes UMMC Ekaterinburg vs. Bourges Basket

Bourges Basket player Сeline Dumerc: "We came up to Yekaterinburg with a weaker team than we expected and could possibly win the game only by some miracle. We wanted to show our respect to a stronger rival, to meet UMMC face to face and not to lose by more than 15 points."

Bourges Basket Head Coach Valerie Garnier:"As Celine has already mentioned we came up with a team that is not so strong as it's supposed to be and we had to do our best to face a very strong opponent and lose by only 18 points. I consider it a good result. In the second half of the game we did good work at the rebounds. Sometimes we fail to control the ball but this time it was ok. Our main goal in EuroLeague Women this season is to qualify to the Final Eight but this time it is pretty hard to do because we are in a very strong group. We also look forward to retain the French league title."

UMMC Ekaterinburg player Deanna Nolan: "We had a great start pushing the ball and managed to make it 12 points ahead of our rival. We were fast and did some quick runs, managed to score both two and three pointers. Our bench also did well. Closer to the end we allowed our opponents to shorten the score difference. But still we had 8 turnovers and we need to work to keep the ball."

UMMC Ekaterinburg Head Coach Algirdas Paulauskas: "This time we faced an unusual team. They have a few players taller than 1.88m and we had a hard time playing in defense. We had a good start, but then Anete Jekabsone got injured. Then we had to change our strong five but still the girls were not lost and showed the good game to the end. The 4th quarter was not that good because our defense started making mistakes, but on the other hand the offense was improvising, so I am quite satisfied with the game."